Jobless rate drops amid growing confidence

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Germany got another economic confidence boost Wednesday with unemployment falling to roughly the same rate it was before the financial crisis.

The federal labour office said that 7.5 percent of the workforce were out of jobs in June, down from 7.7 percent in May, while the total number of unemployed fell 88,000 to 3.15 million.

Compared to June 2009, the total was down 257,000. Unemployment is at its lowest level since December 2008.

Office head Frank-Jürgen Weise said: ''The healthy labour market development of last month has continued in June. The fundamental indicators have once again improved.''

Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING Belgium, said that unemployment now stood at its lowest level since December 2008.

"The German labour market performance remains impressive and clearly is the show case of German crisis management," Brzeski said. "While unemployment rates have surged and sometimes even doubled in many countries, it is now almost back to its pre-crisis level in Germany.''

Stripped of seasonal effects skewing the figures, the adjusted number of jobless fell 21,000 from May, the labour office said, compared with a projected drop of 25,000 according to economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

"Looking ahead, the success story will continue for a while," Brzeski said. "Instead of a bleak future with mass unemployment, the German labour market is heading towards its best times since German reunification."